Sunday, September 26, 2010

New biogas plant set up at pune

PUNE: The city just got its second biogas plant in Nagar Road that not only converts wet waste into electricity, but also powers close to 100 streetlights.

The plant became operational about two weeks ago and has the capacity to convert up to 5 tonne of wet garbage into electricity. As of now, electricity is generated from 3.5 tonne waste, collected mostly from the housing societies in Nagpur Chawl and Maharashtra Housing Board.

The first biogas plant had become operational in Model Colony in February this year.

The new plant is installed at Lumbini garden in the Maharashtra Housing Board area and every day about 3 to 3.5 tonne wet garbage is collected to generate electricity.

Ward officer Vasant Patil said, "The idea began when the Urali Devachi issue happened. We decided to install biogas to solve the problem. Garbage is neatly segregated and the advantage is that the electricity generated is even used for lighting street lamps."

The 100 lamps that are lighted include 15 lamps of 250W, 29 lamps of 150W and 70W each and 25 lamps of 96W.

Geeta Jadhav, a resident of the locality, said, "I think it is a green initiative and has brought about some discipline as far as garbage segregation is concerned. Our wet garbage automatically gets separated as we have to dispose it off for the biogas plant. As a result, the locality has learnt to segregate wet and dry garbage, which has been an issue in the city for many years."

Patil said, "In another month we will scale it up to its full capacity of 5 tonne."

Source : Times of India